From beyond the grave, celebrated playwright Antoine d'Anthac gathers together all his friends who have appeared over the years in his play "Eurydice."

Margaret: David:

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Rated PG

Review by David Stratton

Alain Resnais has just turned 91, and the director of such masterpieces as HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR and LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD is still active, still making films to provoke, challenge and amuse. YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET is based on two plays by Jean Anouilh, 'Eurydice' and 'Cher Antoine.' At the start a number of well-known French actors, playing themselves, among them LAMBERT WILSON, MATHIEU AMALRIC and SABINE AZEMA, receive phone calls from a lawyer who tells them their friend, Antoine, a playwright, is dead. They are summoned to his home where a suave butler, ANDRZEJ SEWERYN, stage-manages events, including a film of the dead man, DENIS PODALYDES, explaining that a young experimental theatre group is producing his play 'Eurydice'; all the invited guests performed in productions of the play in the past, and they become involved in the new project.

This is a very rarefied film from Resnais and not an easily accessible one if you're not familiar with the original plays. It's a showcase for a fine collection of actors, and they enter into the spirit of the piece with enthusiasm. But Acting is the key word; despite the director's efforts to lighten the material with wily, sophisticated humour, it all feels very theatrical and stagey. At Cannes last year it was suggested this might be Resnais' final film - but he's just completed a new one with the promising title LOVE, DRINK AND SING. Margaret, I'm curious to know what you made of YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET.

Further comments

MARGARET: Well, it starts and it's so intriguingly set up that you are entranced. It's a conceit. You have this wonderful old director basically manipulating his cast within the theatre in the film so it's a double whammy really.

DAVID: Yes.

MARGARET: In a way you want, somewhere along the line, to enter into the personal, the heart of this, but it's always on that intellectual level that I thought ultimately it became quite dull. So I was really disappointed in a way.

DAVID: Yes.

MARGARET: The director insisted on this strange title, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET. I mean what's that all about?

DAVID: I think it's interesting because I think Resnais, from the very beginning of his career, has always been interested in memory and in the impact of the past on the present and that, in a way, is what this is all about too.

MARGARET: Yes, but he doesn't really come to grips with...

DAVID: Well, he doesn't present it on a personal level.

MARGARET: No.

DAVID: It's more remote and theatrical really.

MARGARET: Well, yes, you know. I mean there's no connection of the plays with the personal.

DAVID: No, that's right. So, like you I think, I found it a bit frustrating too.